


Little Li

by NotThatIWillEverWriteIt



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Chapter 294, Fanart, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, Kind of..., POV Original Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 22:02:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20216986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotThatIWillEverWriteIt/pseuds/NotThatIWillEverWriteIt
Summary: The boy had been born in the late fall. His hair had been touched by the autumn’s first frost and colored it the same ash grey. His eyes had gotten the same beautiful but wistful glow as leaves in their fall foliage before falling.





	Little Li

**Author's Note:**

> I had been waiting to know something about She Li's background for _so long_, and it was such a fascinating chapter. I knew I had to write something for my snake boy now that I had something to go on. 
> 
> The art is a commission by **ask19bois** on Instagram. Go check out her IG, it's full of unique and hilarious 19 Days art!
> 
> **Read and review <(_ _)>**
> 
> Related chapter(s): [294](http://www.mangago.me/read-manga/19_days/bt/mpn_chapter-2052179/pg-1/)

Over nearly three decades as a nanny, she had crossed paths with numerous types of families. Rich families, and poor families. Families from all social classes from top to bottom. Families that had valued her and treated her as one of them, and families who wouldn’t have given her another look on the street.

She had read bedtime stories to children whose parents were obsessed with their careers or busy working their third job to make a living. She had guided terrified new mothers how to swaddle their newborns and taught clumsy but enthusiastic fathers how to change diapers. She had watched parents make mistakes, gain confidence, lose hope, and love their children more than anything else in the world.

“How long is the doctor going to take?” Li’s mother said and shifted on the plastic chair. “We’ve been here for hours.”

Her groomed nails tapped impatiently, and expensive bracelet twinkled as it caught the bright fluorescent lights. She stood out in her black dress, and you could smell her sweet perfume even from a distance.

“I’m sure he will be here soon, ma’am. Would you like me to fetch you a coffee?”

“Those machine coffees are vile but fine,” she said with a sigh.

The little boy on the hospital bed between them was keenly staring at the sleeping patient across the room, paying them no mind. Gently she brushed his bangs out of his face and broke the whatever spell he had been captured by. He turned to look at her but as always didn’t meet her eyes.

“Little Li, would you like something, too? Maybe a juice box?”

“No,” he said and returned to gaze at the other bed.

“I’ll be right back, then.”

The corridors were crowded. Lost relatives trying to make sense of the signposts, busy doctors striding with their white coat-tails flying, and nurses carrying various, scary-looking instruments. She had to go down to the even more crowded lobby to find the vending and coffee machines.

The coins chinked satisfyingly into the slots, and black liquid gurgled out into brown paper cups. She bought two small coffees and a little cholate bar in a colorful wrapping for Li and sat down in one of the chairs that filled one side of the lobby row after row. The cushion let out a quiet wheeze under her weight.

Ma’am had been right, the coffee tasted quite vile. It was watery and piping hot. She let her eyes wander around the crowd and waited for the steaming drink to cool down a little.

Indeed, naively enough she had thought she had seen the good, the bad, and all in between in her lifetime. And yet she had never met a child quite like little Li.

The boy had been born in the late fall to a young couple. and she had been hired just a couple weeks after. He was a beautiful child. His hair had been touched by the autumn’s first frost and colored it the same ash grey. His eyes had gotten the same beautiful but wistful glow as leaves in their fall foliage before falling.

His mother, unfortunately, had turned out to be the kind which always saddened her the most. The fickle kind. Quick to care and love, but even faster to lose interest. One moment, she spoiled him and gave in to him in all the wrong places thinking that was love. The next, she pushed him away uninterest and impatient to focus on more important things on her mind.

If there was one lesson all the kids she had met in her lifetime had in common it was that children were innocent of their parents’ sins but affected by them the most. A child wouldn’t be able to understand such swift and unpredictable shifts, so she had ended up trying to make up for the blanks to the best of her experience.

But she had always had a feeling she couldn’t quite reach him. Just as his gazes, everything seemed to just barely slip past him.

There was something about that boy that had bothered her, made her both uncomfortable and frustrated. But the more she had pressed the issue and made an effort to fix what she thought was wrong, the further away he seemed to slip. After a while, she had decided to give on things she didn't have the power to change. Maybe she was just facing something new. Every one of the children she had cared for had tilted her heart in their way and taught her something new about the world. And over the years, she had learned a great many things from her little frost-haired boy.

Compared to other children, he was quiet, but she had learned to sense his silent presence. He seemed to prefer his own company but occasionally had his needy moments when he looked for physical reassurance. She had learned to read the subtle signs when to leave him be and when to provide closeness. He didn’t always listen to her, and sometimes she had to discipline him.

He was a strange boy, no doubt about it, but she had learned to worry about the right things. In the end, the bedtime stories she read to him at night were just the same she had read to every other child.

But not feeling pain was odd even for Li. For how had he been like that? Was he scared? Had he been worrying about it on his own? What if he had been hurting himself to see how far he could it? Did he have other hidden injuries they didn’t know about?

Slowly she sipped halfway through her small coffee before it became too much for taste buds and she tossed the rest in the close-by bin. The chocolate snack she slipped in her purse before heading back to the emergency ward.

Over the hustle and bustle of the lobby, her ears instinctively perked up at the sound of a child crying, and two red-haired heads caught her eye in the grey of the crowd. A slim woman carrying a small boy and cradling him as he clung to the back of her shirt with his little fists and sobbed miserably against her shoulder. She rubbed his narrow back and seemed to say something to his ear.

For a fleeting moment, she suddenly missed taking care of children that weren’t like –

Little Li?

A few feet away from the woman and crying child stood a little boy who resembled Li an awful lot in his ash grey hair and little pajamas. He wasn’t doing anything, just stood there and stared, but to her surprise, she found herself bothered by that intense gaze. It made her uncomfortable for some reason.

Before she managed to push through the mass of people and reach Li and the strangers, the woman had spotted the little boy and was crouched down to Li’s eye level and was saying something to him.

“ – you okay, sweetie? Are you lost?”

“Excuse me, ma’am.” She nodded at the woman and grabbed a hold of Li’s bony shoulder. “I’m sorry, he’s my – I know this boy. He must’ve left his room when I was getting some coffee.”

The woman stood up and smiled politely. Looking close up, she had a gentle face framed by natural red locks of hair which color reminded her of the leaves that always spotted the sea of yellow in the autumn and gave it its final glory and beauty. The little boy in her arms had stopped sobbing as curiosity took the better of him. Sniffing and face streaked with tear tracks he stole careful glances over his shoulder.

“Oh, what a relief! I thought I’d have to take him to the reception desk and have them call a missing child. You can so easily get lost in these kinds of places.”

“Indeed,” she said and frown down at Li who, in his usual manner, was overtaken by some strange spell-like fascination. “You shouldn’t wander by yourself like this. Your mother must be worried.”

She nodded at the woman again. “I’m sorry he bothered you.”

“Oh, no bother at all. I’m just glad he was found.” The woman gave another smile, this time a bit warmer, and waved dismissively. “But what on earth has happened to your hands, sweetie?”

“I fell,” Li said.

His eyes remained glued to the woman and the little boy so tight he had to crane his neck to look at them.

“Oh, that’s too bad. You have to be careful and not worry your mother like that.”

The red-haired boy wriggled in her arms and buried his face in the crook of her neck with a quiet whine. She reached back to check on him and wiped his plumb cheeks dry with her thumb.

“You must be getting tired, huh? We’ve had a bit of a rough day. He bumped his forehead and had to get stitches. Can you show many you got?”

The boy shook his head and pressed tighter against her neck.

“Three? Did you get three? Or a hundred?”

“Thwee,” came a muffled answer accompanied with two stubby fingers pointing up.

“Aw, you poor thing. Fortunately, it wasn’t anything more serious.”

“Yes, we were lucky, weren’t we Guan Shan?” She ruffled his messy mop of red hair. “Gave me a scare, though, but I guess boys keep you at your toes.”

“They sure do. Well, we shouldn’t keep you. Get well soon, little Guan Shan, and be more careful.”

Together with his mother’s assistance, they waved their goodbyes. The last thing she heard before they disappeared into the crowd was her asking if he wanted an orange pop sickle from the store.

“Now, you, young man,” she said and pried the boy around by his shoulder to face her, but as usual, he refused to look at her. “What if I hadn’t bumped into you here? We’d be looking all over the hospital for you. Come on, let’s back to your mother.”

Carefully, she took his bandaged hand in hers and tried to look for the corridor that would lead them back to the emergency ward.

“Why was that boy crying?”

“He must’ve been scared and in pain. He had hurt himself.”

“Did he bleed?”

“Probably.”

“Then why I didn’t cry?”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and gave his hand a little squeeze.

“I don’t know, but I’m sure the doctors will figure it out. It’ll be fine.”

The little slippers quietly shuffled on the floor that reflected the bright fluorescent lights above as she led the way. She let out of sigh of relief when things started looking more familiar. Now, if she could just find his bed.

“He had red hair.”

“He sure did,” she said absentmindedly.

“Why?”

“Because his mom had red hair.”

The little fingers wrapped a little tighter around her hand.

“I wish mother had red hair, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Behind the keyboard: [Tumblr](https://notthatiwilleverwriteit.tumblr.com/) | [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/venni.talvi.31) | Instagram: @notthatiwilleverwriteit


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